Meta:Yuji Horii
Template:Infobox Staff Yuji Horii (Japanese: 堀井 雄二, Horii Yuji), born January 6, 1954, is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the Dragon Quest series of role-playing games, supervising and writing the scenario for Chrono Trigger, as well as the first visual novel adventure game Portopia Serial Murder Case.
Career
He graduated from Waseda University's Department of Literature. He also worked as a freelance writer for newspapers, comics, and magazines, including the Famicom Shinken video games column that ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1985 to 1988.
He then entered in an Enix-sponsored game programming contest, where he placed with Love Match Tennis, a tennis video game, motivating him to become a video game designer.
Horii then created The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a game that later inspired Hideo Kojima, of Metal Gear fame, to enter the video game industry. It is the first part of the Yuji Horii Mysteries trilogy, along with its successors Okhotsk ni Kiyu: Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin (1984), and Karuizawa Yūkai Annai (1985).
After creating several more visual novel adventure games, Horii went on to create Dragon Quest, which is said to have created the blueprint for Japanese console role-playing games, taking inspiration from Portopia, as well as Wizardry and Ultima.
He was a fan of Apple PC role-playing games and was motivated to create Dragon Quest for ordinary gamers, who found such games difficult, and thus he worked on an intuitive control system, influenced by his work on Portopia.
His works also include the Itadaki Street series. Horii was also a supervisor of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game, Chrono Trigger, which had multiple game endings, with Horii appearing in one of the endings with the game development staff.
Horii currently heads his own production company, Armor Project, a company that has an exclusive production contract with Square Enix, a contract established with Enix before the company merged with Square. He is on the selection committee for the annual Super Dash Novel Rookie of the Year Award.
Works
Mystery Dungeon Franchise
In the Mystery Dungeon franchise, he appeared numerous time as different roles.
| Year | Game | Role | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon | Designer / Writer | |
| 1999 | World of Dragon Warrioir: Torneko: The Last Hope | Designer | |
| 2001 | Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko's Great Adventure 2 Advance: Mystery Dungeon | Designer | |
| 2002 | Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko's Great Adventure 3: Mystery Dungeon | Designer | |
| 2004 | Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko's Great Adventure 3 Advance: Mystery Dungeon | Designer | |
| 2006 | Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon | Designer |
Other games
In other medias, he is known as the designer and scenario writer for the Dragon Quest franchise since its first title in 1986.
| Year | Game | Role | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Love Match Tennis | Designer | |
| The Portopia Serial Murder Case | Designer / Writer | ||
| 1984 | Okhotsk ni Kiyu: Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin Jiken [ja] | Writer | |
| 1985 | Karuizawa Yūkai Annai | Writer | |
| 1986 | Dragon Quest | Designer / Writer | |
| 1987 | Dragon Quest II | Designer / Writer | |
| 1988 | Dragon Quest III | Designer / Writer | |
| 1990 | Dragon Quest IV | Designer / Writer | |
| 1991 | Itadaki Street: Watashi no Omise ni Yottette | Writer | |
| Famicom Jump II: Saikyō no Shichinin | Designer / Supervisor | ||
| 1992 | Dragon Quest V | Designer / Writer | |
| 1994 | Itadaki Street 2 | Designer | |
| 1995 | Dragon Quest VI | Designer / Writer | |
| Chrono Trigger | Writer | ||
| 1998 | Dragon Quest Monsters | Designer / Writer / Executive director | |
| Itadaki Street: Gorgeous King | Designer | ||
| 1999 | Dragon Quest VII | Designer / Writer / Scenario director | |
| 2000 | Dragon Quest Monsters 2 | Designer / Writer / Executive director | |
| 2001 | Itadaki Street 3 | Designer | |
| 2002 | Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart | Designer / Writer / Executive director | |
| 2004 | Dragon Quest VIII | Designer / Writer | |
| 2005 | Itadaki Street Special | Designer | |
| 2006 | Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime | Executive producer | |
| Itadaki Street Portable | Designer | ||
| Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker | Designer / Writer / General director | ||
| 2007 | Itadaki Street DS | Designer | |
| 2009 | Dragon Quest Swords | Designer | |
| Dragon Quest IX | Designer / Writer | ||
| 2010 | Itadaki Street Mobile | Designer | |
| 2011 | Fortune Street | Designer | |
| Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest 3 | Executive producer | ||
| 2012 | Dragon Quest X | Designer / Writer / General director | |
| 2015 | Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below | General director | |
| Dragon Quest of the Stars | General director | ||
| 2016 | Dragon Quest Heroes II | General director | |
| 2017 | Dragon Quest XI | Designer / Writer | |
| 2019 | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Supervisor | |
| Dragon Quest Walk | General director | ||
| TBA | Dragon Quest XII | Designer / Writer |
See Also
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